Childe Hassam (1859–1935)

CHILDE HASSAM (1859–1935)
Portrait of Nan Wood Honeyman, 1904
Oil on canvas, 30 x 25 in.
Signed and dated (in upper left): Childe Hassam 1904

RECORDED: Nancy Lee, “Society,” Sunday Oregonian, November 8, 1908, p. 2 // “Art Exhibitions. New Pictures Here and in Washington,” New-York Tribune, December 13, 1908, p. 16 // “Hassam Pictures Exhibited. Typical Pieces by the Noted Artist to be seen at Montross Galleries,” New York Times, December 22, 1908, p. 4 // “Art Exhibit Starts Monday of Next Week. Fourteenth Annual International Display of Paintings in Carnegie Institute,” Pittsburgh Daily Post, April 25, 1910, p. 5, as “Portrait of Mrs. David T. Honeyman” // Catherine Jones, “Four New Exhibitions Now on Display: Art Museum Shows Variety of Works,” The Oregonian, February 22, 1953, illus. [erroneously dated 1906] // Margaret E. Bullock, Childe Hassam: Impressionist in the West, exhib. cat. (Portland, Oregon: Portland Art Museum, 2004), p. 102

EXHIBITED: Montross Gallery, New York, [Exhibition of Pictures by Childe Hassam], December 13–26, 1908 // Portland Art Association, Portland, Oregon, Summer 1909, Catalogue of a Loan Exhibition of Paintings, no. 66 or 93, as “Portrait” // Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, May 2–June 30, 1910, Fourteenth Annual Exhibition, no. 141, as “Portrait of Mrs. David T. Honeyman,” lent by C. E. S. Wood, Portland, Oregon // Portland Art Association, Portland, Oregon, March 20–April 21, 1919, An Exhibition of Portraits Lent by Residents of Portland, no. 23, as “Portrait,” lent by Mrs. C. E. S. Wood // Portland Art Association, Portland, Oregon, March 11–18, 1920, A Loan Exhibition of Paintings, no. 17, as “Portrait,” lent by Mrs. David T. Honeyman // Portland Art Association, Portland, Oregon, November 18, 1932–January 2, 1933, Loan Exhibition of Paintings Held in the New Museum of Art, no. 44, as “Portrait,” lent by Mrs. David T. Honeyman // Portland Art Museum, Portland, Oregon, February 20–March 29, 1953, as “Portrait of Nan Wood Honeyman,” lent by Mrs. David T. Honeyman

EX COLL.: the artist, 1904; to Col. and Mrs. Charles Erskine Scott Wood, Portland, Oregon, and, after 1918, Los Gatos, California; to their daughter, Mrs. David T. (Nan Wood) Honeyman, Portland, Oregon, by 1920; to her daughter, Mrs. Judith Honeyman Miller, Orinda, California, until 1960; to her husband, Mr. Michael Miller, Orinda, California, by 1960; to his daughter, Nan Michele Barry Bauer, Miramonte, California, 1984 until the present

Hassam was an artist who was constantly open to new experiences, especially ones that provided him with fresh motifs for his brush and new opportunities for patronage. Accordingly, in August 1904, having completed a four-part decorative mural for Colonel C. E. S. Wood (1852–1944)––a former soldier turned attorney, civil liberties advocate, writer, and poet, and one of the most significant figures in Oregon history during the Gilded Age––he traveled to Portland to install it in the library of Wood’s home on “the Heights,” a comfortable yet elegant abode decorated with exotic furnishings, rare books, and bric-a-brac. An amateur painter and “bon vivant” who is said to have been “at much at home in the salons and studios of New York, as on the plains of the Far West,” Wood had established friendships with many prominent New York painters and sculptors while studying law at Columbia University. Not surprisingly, he became an enthusiastic collector of art, adorning his home with works by Albert Pinkham Ryder and Olin Levi Warner, in addition to works by his good friends Hassam and Weir.

As well as spending time with Wood and his wife, Nanny Moale Smith, a cultured woman with a love of music and flowers, Hassam enjoyed the company of their offspring: sons Erskine, Max, and Berwick, and their sisters Lisa and Nan. Certainly, Hassam and Colonel Wood got on well. Indeed, during his two-and-a-half-month visit, Hassam and Wood traveled throughout the state, painting views of locales such as Mount Hood, Ecoa Beach, the Harney Desert, and Portland Harbor. In keeping with his penchant for depicting friends and associates from his immediate social circle, Hassam also executed impressionist-inspired figural works such as Summer Porch at Mr. and Mrs. C. E. S. Wood’s (1904; private collection), a portrait of Lisa (private collection), and the present portrait, a half-length likeness of Wood’s older daughter Nan.

Born in West Point, New York on July 15, 1881, Nan was the second child of Charles and Nanny. After graduating from St. Helen’s Hall, a private high school in Portland, she studied music at the Finch School in New York, where she became a lifelong friend of Eleanor Roosevelt, who, along with Charles (a Democrat and activist in a Republican state), would influence her later path in life. Upon returning to Portland, Nan fraternized with leading members of local society, including David Taylor Honeyman (1880–1946), secretary-treasurer of the Honeyman Hardware Company who she married on February 12, 1907. Later, while raising her three children, Nan devoted part of her time to local women’s organizations and charitable causes, including the League of Women Voters and the American Red Cross, and during the 1920s she became involved with the state’s Democratic Party. In 1935, Nan was elected a member of the Oregon House of Representatives (the first woman in Oregon to serve in Congress), going on to serve on House committees such as Indian Affairs and Rivers and Harbors. As a supporter of Roosevelt’s New Deal, she became a staunch advocate for policies that would benefit her constituents, such as the allotment of loans to farmers experiencing the woes of the Depression. After losing her seat in 1939, Nan served briefly in the Oregon Senate during 1941. Her connections with the White House also led to positions as senior representative of the Pacific Coast Office of the U.S. Price Administration (1941–42) and the U.S. Collector of Customs for Portland (1942–53). Nan remained an Oregonian until the mid-1960s, when she relocated to Woodacre, California, where she died on December 10, 1970.